Tuesday, November 13, 2012

North Korean harvests improving

North Korea
made headlines a couple of years ago when it asked for food aid. The isolated
country finally had to break out to prevent its population from starving.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently returned from
a trip from North Korea
to give an assessment on the country’s food security. The F.A.O. finds that
harvests have improved over the last couple of years but not enough to prevent
malnutrition for many.

The U.N. organisation forecast a 10 percent increase in the main 2012
harvests and 2013 early season crops compared with a year earlier, and
said production was expected to hit 5.8 million metric tons.

The country faced a staple food deficit of 207,000 metric tons, the
lowest in many years, but 2.8 million people remained vulnerable to
undernutrition, the FAO added.

...

"DPR Korea still needs international help," Kisan Gunjal, FAO
economist and the mission's co-leader, said in a statement. "The new
harvest figures are good news, but the lack of proteins and fats in the
diet is alarming."